TDIH: Abigail Adams on Difficulty
Hint: She wouldn't understand "safe spaces."
On this day in 1780, in the midst of the American Revolution, Abigail Adams writes her son, John Quincy Adams, with a piece of advice.
"These are times in which a Genious would wish to live," she wrote. "It is not in the still calm of life, or the repose of a pacific station, that great characters are formed. Would Cicero have shone so distinguished an orater, if he had not been roused, kindled and enflamed by the Tyranny of Catiline, Millo, Verres and Mark Anthony. The Habits of a vigorous mind are formed in contending with difficulties. All History will convince you of this, and that wisdom and penetration are the fruits of experience, not the Lessons of retirement and leisure. Great necessities call out great virtues. When a mind is raised, and animated by scenes that engage the Heart, then those qualities which would otherways lay dormant, wake into Life, and form the Character of the Hero and the Statesman."
What an interesting contrast to modern day priorities, don't you think? What would Abigail say?
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A much more eloquent way of saying: tough times make tough people and soft times make soft people. We have become too economical with our words. We hope to reach the uneducated with our prose so we reduce our intellect to theirs. I like how our forefathers and mothers instead let the masses reach up to theirs. You are a bright light, Tara. Please continue shining your beam upon us.
Wow. Of course, I have always believed that Abigail Adams was a great right hand to our second president, John Adams, but given this letter to her son, our sixth president, John Quincy Adams, perhaps she should have been our third president?
Seriously, Abigail Adams was an important influence in many ways regarding the early years of our founding. Thank you Tara.